


Babysitting Duty

by collectingnames



Series: My Miracle (fjorclay collection) [3]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Babysitting, Fluff, M/M, cad misses his family, discussions of parenthood, fjord and caduceus being unbearably cute with a toddler, high elves get a free wizard cantrip, hijinks ensue, i'm procrastinating so hard right now, matt give caduceus his family back already, with a dash of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-19 08:13:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20654003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/collectingnames/pseuds/collectingnames
Summary: The Mighty Nein are hired by a traveling noble couple as their guard but asks two of them to stay behind to guard their house/toddler--------------“C’mon!  You did a pretty great job with Kiri!  You two can handle this!” Jester pleaded with them to take babysitting responsibilities for the supposedly brief job they’d agreed to.A lower-ranking noble couple had hired the Nein as their bodyguards for a brief diplomatic meeting, but for whatever reason, the couple had insisted that they wanted two of them to stay behind and guard their child.  Somehow a diplomatic meeting was not ‘child-appropriate’ but they were willing to leave their child behind with two strange sellswords and the rest of the house staff.  Beau seemed the least surprised by the request, just scoffing ‘rich people’ under her breath.





	Babysitting Duty

**Author's Note:**

> based on this tumblr post->https://buddhistmamaduck.tumblr.com/post/187680811654/your-post-about-fjord-and-caduceus-made-me-think
> 
> I love fjorclay and the idea of them babysitting was too cute for me to not do anything with it.

“C’mon! You did a pretty great job with Kiri! You two can handle this!” Jester pleaded with them to take babysitting responsibilities for the supposedly brief job they’d agreed to.

A lower-ranking noble couple had hired the Nein as their bodyguards for a brief diplomatic meeting, but for whatever reason, the couple had insisted that they wanted two of them to stay behind and guard their child. Somehow a diplomatic meeting was not ‘child-appropriate’ but they were willing to leave their child behind with two strange sellswords and the rest of the house staff. Beau seemed the least surprised by the request, just scoffing ‘rich people’ under her breath.

“Jester, do you really think leaving one of our two clerics behind on babysitting duty is a great idea?” Nott pointed out.

“It’s a ‘diplomatic meeting,’” she said with sarcastic air quotes, “I can handle any healing by myself.”

Caleb’s voice started talking in his head, “ _ She is trying to get you some alone time with Caduceus, you idiot. Take it. We can handle ourselves without you two _ .”

For the millionth time, Fjord wished he wasn’t so quick to blush, “What do you think, Caduceus? You up for babysitting duty?”

“Hmm, are you sure? Nott has a point,” Caduceus looked deep in thought considering the possibilities.

“We won’t be gone long. Two, three days at most. I’m sure you two can handle a baby. And Caduceus can just have Sending prepared to let us know if anything goes wrong,” Caleb suggested.

“What about you, Yasha? Do you want babysitting duty?” Caduceus turned the conversation over to where she’d been mostly silent for this conversation.

Yasha shared the tiniest of grins with Jester, “No, if we do have to fight anything you guys will want me there. And I can do a little bit of healing.”

“Well, if you guys think you’ll be good I’ll stay behind for babysitting duty then,” Caduceus agreed.

And if Jester could have gotten away with high-fiving Fjord right then and there she probably would have.

The next day at the nobles’ mansion they all sat on the steps waiting for them to come out. The grand front doors swung open, nearly knocking Nott off her feet. The noble couple, a high elf man and woman strode out to meet them. A child no older than two, or whatever the elvish equivalent of two was, was carried on the man’s hip. The woman scanned over the seven of them.

“Which two are staying behind? Have you already decided or will we have to pick for you?” She asked.

Jester pushed Fjord and Caduceus further up the steps to meet the couple, “These two!”

She looked the two of them over, “Remind me your names again?”

Fjord put out a hand to shake hers, “Fjord.”

She took it. He could see the gears in her head turning at the lack of surname, turned her attention up to Caduceus, “And you are?”

He dipped his head down a little in a bow, “Caduceus Clay, at your service.”

“Mr. Clay, Mr. Fjord, my husband and I are putting great faith in you,” she warned them.

Fjord had to choke back the impulse to make a joke about how the two ‘holy men’, as Nott had first called him, know a thing or two about that, “Of course, Lady Meliamne. No harm will come to your child.”

The lord turned so the toddler on his hip could see her new babysitters better, “What do you think?”

The toddler immediately fell into slack-jawed amazement at the giant pink-haired man in colorful clothes that stood head-and-shoulders over both her parents. Fjord didn’t seem to attract as much attention though.

The lord chuckled, “She might try to climb you, fair warning.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Fjord noticed him curling his tail up underneath his jacket, squarely out of sight of grabby toddler hands.

“Come on, I’ll show you two around while the carriage is prepared,” Lady Meliamne turned and guided them inside.

After what felt like could have been a half an hour, though he wasn’t great at telling how much time has passed, the noblewoman finished guiding them through the mansion. She spun on the ball of her foot to look them in the eye.

“And if you have any further questions I’m sure the staff can answer them for you. Do you have anything you’d wish to ask  _ me _ before I leave?” She folded her hands in front of her, she definitely seemed less doubtful of them now.

In all honesty, she’d been talking so quickly that Fjord had only caught maybe half of what she’d told them, “No, madam. We can handle it from here.”

“Good, we’ll be back soon,” she gestured for her husband to come in the sitting room with them.

Lord Meliamne joined them, looked to the toddler on his hip, “Mr. Clay or Mr. Fjord?”

She pointed up at Caduceus, “Clay!”

The elven two-year-old looked even smaller once her father handed her off to the firbolg, “Hello.”

Her parents both came up to give her a hug and a kiss on the top of her head before leaving, “We’ll be back soon, Bryn.”

“Mamma bye!” the toddler tried to say goodbye.

“Bye-bye,” her parents both said in a soft baby-talk voice.

The candles in the room suddenly started to flicker out and blaze back even brighter than before. At random, there was no visible pattern either of them could spot. Bryn was already hard at work playing with Caduceus’s long pink and grey hair.

She pushed a fistful of it into his face, “Like candy!”

“Yeah, I guess it does kinda look like peppermint now,” Caduceus agreed, luckily she hadn’t grabbed enough of it for her to pull on it when she pushed it into his face.

A strange odor filled the room and the candles stopped flickering.

“Does she need a change?” Caduceus’s nose scrunched up and he turned to ask Fjord.

“No,” the strange odor disappeared as fast as it had come, Fjord furrowed his brow and tried to make sense of the elvish that Bryn was babbling.

A puff of harmless sparks shot out of her hand, like the sparklers in Hupperdook, and blinded him for half a second, “ _ She’s casting a spell _ .”

“Do you know what it is?” Caduceus held her out in front of him like she might explode.

“Um? Maybe? I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever learned this one,” the spell seemed harmless enough though, Fjord wracked his memory for some clue.

Caduceus smiled, big and wide and calm for the toddler, “Bryn? Can you stop?”

She shot off another puff of sparks, directly into his face.

“Could be worse. She could know Thaumaturgy,” Caduceus put her back on his hip.

Fjord immediately remembered their first meeting where Jester had made all of the windows in the tavern fling open, “ _ Yeah _ .”

Caduceus’s voice suddenly boomed, “ **We know some magic tricks too, little one** .”

“‘Duceus! What are you doing?! You’re going to spook her!!!” Fjord rushed over to take her.

Bryn stared up at Caduceus comically wide-eyed for a moment and let go of his hair, “ _ AGAIN! AGAIN! AGAIN! _ ”

“My elvish is a little rusty but,” Caduceus cleared his throat before saying something he couldn’t understand, voice booming again.

“We should probably ask the others if they know what she’s casting,” Fjord tried to suggest but Caduceus and Bryn were already enthralled by their magical shouting match.

Caduceus leaned down to whisper to him, “Maybe if we just let her keep casting it she’ll wear herself out.”

Fjord made an uncertain grumble in his throat, “I guess it’s worth a shot.”

Bryn screamed something in elvish again, no match for Caduceus’s Thaumaturgy.

Fjord sat off to the side keeping watch over the two of them screaming elvish at each other. Caduceus hadn’t been kidding when he said his elvish was rusty, it didn’t sound much better than the toddler’s. It had been at least two hours and Bryn showed no sign of exhaustion. Though if nothing else Caduceus was probably going to make her scream away her voice. He wanted to pull out his sword and sharpen or maybe clean it to stave off his boredom but summoning a broadsword from nowhere in front an excitable toddler was undoubtedly a bad idea. Still, he was content to just watch while Caduceus and Bryn sat on the floor casting their cantrips at each other. 

Caduceus was plenty of a distraction to fight off the boredom though. He watched as Cad put his hair up into a bun to keep it away from Bryn’s grasp. It didn’t take long for her to start playing with his spiderweb sleeve. Which Caduceus didn’t really seem to mind, as thoroughly shredded as it now was, post-Frumpkin. If anything it gave Caduceus a chance to give his voice a break, he’d had Thaumaturgy to make him louder but he’d still been shouting for the past two hours. Caduceus’s eyes came up to meet his gaze, having caught him staring and just smiled.

“Having fun down there?” He tried to make it sound like he’d been watching over the both of them and not just staring at Caduceus.

His voice was scratchy, “We’re definitely gonna have an interesting few days.”

“For sure. Do you want to trade-off?” He asked.

Caduceus stretched out one leg from where he’d been sitting cross-legged on the floor, “Mm, that’d be nice.”

Bryn gripped tight onto the sleeve and went off the ground a few inches as he stood up.

Fjord slipped into his spot on the floor and eased her grip on the sleeve, “C’mon, need you to let go now.”

“Ah!” Caduceus stumbled a step before righting himself on the arm of the sofa.

“Are you alright?” He started standing up to meet him.

He gave his leg a few shakes real quick, “I’m fine, my leg fell asleep is all. Oh, by the way, I couldn’t really understand most of what she’s saying. But she does seem pretty interested in your tusks though.”

“Oh!” He wasn’t really sure what to do with that information.

“She thinks they’re cool, don’t worry. She might try and touch them though so I’d be careful,” Caduceus warned.

Sure enough, the first thing Bryn did was try and tap at his mouth, instead slapped him in the face. Caduceus stifled a laugh half-successfully. Bryn smacked him in the face again.

She bared her teeth at him, “You too!”

“Grrr!” He bared his teeth as much as he could, his upper lip curling up.

“Grrrrr!” She stood up in his grip to stand on his thigh and make herself taller than him.

“Watch out, she’s gonna eat you,” Caduceus joked from over on the couch.

He lifted her over his head, “Is that what you’re gonna do? You gonna eat me?”

She giggled with delight, “Grrr!!!”

“She’s got you right where she wants you,” Caduceus gave him that lidded smile as he kept up the joke.

He brought her back down to sit in his lap, “Watch this.”

Fjord made a few quick hand motions and conjured a little illusory image of Bryn but with big half-orc tusks seated on his other thigh. For as simple of an illusion that it was it did more than enough to impress a toddler. In surprise, she hurled a hand at it and only got more surprised when her hand went straight through it.

She kept trying to hit her toothy double but her hands hit nothing but empty air, “Go ‘way!”

With a snap of his fingers, it disappeared, “Better?”

She nodded yes, a somewhat upset quirk to her brow.

Fjord ruffled up her hair, “Hey, it’s alright.”

She yawned and flopped against his chest.

“Do you remember where she said the nursery is?” He shifted to try and stand back up, still holding Bryn.

Caduceus pulled himself up from the plush couch with his staff, “Yeah, c’mon. She said it was on the second floor.”

Fjord and Caduceus quietly took her upstairs and tested a few of the unlocked doors as they went before they finally opened one into the nursery that they’d only gotten a brief glimpse of earlier that morning. The room was so fancy Fjord felt like he shouldn’t be in there. This child was going to be so spoiled, she practically had the Pillow Trove for a nursery.

Caduceus eased her out of Fjord’s arms and set her down in the crib, “Mmkay, naptime.”

He shut the door close to soundlessly behind them once she was settled, “Wish they’d told us she has magic.”

“I think she might have said something in passing. I may have been a little distracted,” Caduceus leaned back against the nursery door.

Fjord cleared his throat, “You know Jester-?”

“-Was trying to get us alone?” Caduceus finished the sentence for him.

“Yeah,” he ran a nervous hand through his hair, made a little mental note to himself that he should probably trim back the sides soon.

“You didn’t seem sure about taking up babysitting duty and I didn’t want to make you feel like you had to,” Caduceus leaned forward on his staff so he was closer in height to him.

“I think they all might have been in on it. Caleb and Yasha at least,” Fjord tried not to notice how much closer he was now.

“I don’t know what she expected to happen. We’re guarding a baby,” Caduceus gave him that warm, lidded smile again.

“Who knows? Maybe one of her and Caleb’s books is about two bodyguards,” Fjord joked, not meeting Caduceus’s gaze.

Caduceus put a hand on his shoulder, “Hey, don’t worry about it. You’re doing a pretty good job of this so far.”

“Thank you,” he backed up a step, too quick to see the slight frown of disappointment in Caduceus’s face when he put distance between them.

“I mean it, Fjord. I’m sure you’ll be a great father someday,” Caduceus stood up straight, taking his weight off his staff.

“Same to you,” he desperately wished that Bryn would wake up or one of the staff would happen upon them and he could get an easy out to this conversation.

Caduceus picked up on his discomfort, “How about some tea? I’m not sure how long she’ll stay down but we should have enough time to brew a pot.”

“That sounds wonderful,” he could always count on Caduceus to read him when he couldn’t say what he was thinking.

The two of them went back downstairs and around to the rear of the house to get to the kitchen. Caduceus made idle conversation with a few cooks while he put on a pot of tea. They seemed just as amused by the novelty of him as Bryn had been when they were first introduced. None of them seemed surprised by the presence of sellswords on babysitting duty though. It gave Fjord the impression that this was a decently common occurrence. Which, weird, but okay. The Lord and Lady Meliamne were probably just determined to make sure no one could come in spitting distance of their child while they were gone.

“Fjord, do you want some?” Caduceus held up the finished tea kettle and pointed to two teacups on the counter next to him.

“Oh! Yes! Yes, please. Sorry, just distracted,” he accepted the teacup as Caduceus handed it to him.

One of the cooks addressed him, an older half-elf woman, “Where have you been in your travels? I’m sure you’ve seen some amazing places.”

“We were at sea for a while,” Fjord gave a vague answer.

“Yes, there was this pirate cultist woman that we stopped from collecting some artifacts to unleash a betrayer god. We took her ship. Fjord here was the captain for a while,” Caduceus elaborated.

“Is there a nanny? Or a governess? It seems weird to place us in charge of that,” Fjord really didn’t want to dwell on how he’d come so close to unleashing his former patron.

Another cook, a young dwarven man, answered, “Normally, but she’s sick today. Don’t worry, she should be able to come in tomorrow. You two are basically here to keep anyone from getting ideas while the Lord and Lady are gone on business.”

“Ah! I see that makes a little more sense,” Fjord finished off his tea.

The rest of the day went on with little to no incident. Bryn would shoot off little puffs of sparkles when anyone picked her up but didn’t do anything they couldn’t handle. Fjord couldn’t help but remember growing up in the Driftwood Asylum, how the other kids had practically raised him. And how he’d done the same when he was old enough. Caduceus sat in an armchair on the other side of the room, by the fireplace, Bryn had worn him out ages ago and didn’t have the energy to stop her when she started climbing up his leg.

Fjord pulled himself up out of his seat and peeled the toddler off his leg, “Come on. No climbing. Want up?”

She made more sparkles, “Up!”

Fjord put her on his shoulders and she gripped onto his hair for support, “See? You’re taller than Caduceus now.”

“Are you now?” Caduceus got up from where he’d gotten comfortable and strode over to where they were, lining himself up with Fjord to judge heights.

Bryn put a hand on top of Cad’s head, “Small now!”

Without warning, Caduceus appeared two feet shorter than before, shorter than Fjord by a few inches, with feigned surprise, “You made me small!” 

Bryn patted at the seemingly empty space where her hand was still in Caduceus’s hair, “Big!”

The disguise self dropped, her hand now visibly making contact with Caduceus’s head, “You’re a very powerful wizard. You’re going to make Mr. Caleb jealous.”

A friendly voice butted into his thoughts, Jester, “Hi guys! It’s super boring here! How’s the baby? Should be back morning after next. They forgot to tell you about her prestidigitation, sorry! Bye!”

“That was Jester, can you count for me?” Fjord started his reply, “Bryn is fine. Energetic. The nanny was sick today. We’re doing fine. Figured it out the hard way. We’ll see you soon. How are you?”

The fuzzy, static-y noise of Sending hitting his mind came again, “It’s so  _ boring _ ! You two must be having so much fun! I should have said yes to babysitting. It’s all just boring trade talk.”

Fjord smirked at Caduceus, “I thought you guys were trying to get the two of us some alone time? Caleb told me.”

Jester didn’t reply, but with the last vestiges of Sending he swore he could hear her scolding Caleb for giving away their plan.

Bryn yawned and let her head rest on top of his.

Caduceus ruffled her hair, “Is it late?”

She nodded yes, then no, then yes again.

Fjord eased her down off his shoulders, “C’mon.”

Another quick trip back upstairs to the nursery and they laid Bryn down in her crib, having already fallen asleep with her head on Fjord’s shoulder while they were walking. She stirred a little when he set her down, but not enough to wake up all the way. He went to the window to double-check that it was locked before leaving to find a spare bedroom. As comfortable as the couches in the sitting room were he wasn’t exactly interested in sleeping there. Caduceus followed behind a few steps.

“Do you want to take first watch or should I?” Fjord asked as he kept checking for empty rooms.

“I can do it. Fjord, I just wanted to say sorry about earlier. I didn’t think that was such a sore subject for you,” Caduceus came close to bumping straight into Fjord’s back where he stopped in his tracks.

He finally opened a door to what looked like a guest room, “It’s alright. You didn’t mean anything by it.”

“I very much meant it, Fjord,” Caduceus looked at him, confused that Fjord thought he would tell him something like that so flippantly.

“Thank you. Now if you don’t mind I really need to sleep,” Fjord shut the door behind him and started to shuck off all his layers.

Why did Caduceus have to say things like that? Why couldn’t he keep his mind from wandering back to Driftwood? Why did Caduceus have to be so big and colorful and distracting? He’d agreed to this, why was he being weird about it now?

He finally managed to get down to a reasonable amount of layers and crawled into the guest bed.

Caduceus shaking his shoulder woke him up, “Your turn.”

Sure enough the next morning the nanny arrived and gave everything a once-over, including the two of them. With that taken care of that just left them with guarding the house for the rest of the day. The mansion was a little bit out of the way, up a long path from the main road and gated. Not invisible from the main road but still hard to see clearly with all the greenery. 

Caduceus broke the silence that sat between the two of them while they ate their porridge that was meant to be hot breakfast but ended up as more of a cold lunch, “Do you want to see if there’s a garden? We can meditate, maybe commune with the Wildmother?”

It was an excuse to get them outside, “Sure.”

No garden, not really, but they did find some cross of a sunroom and a greenhouse that overlooked the back of the property.

“I meant what I said yesterday,” Caduceus launched straight into it, without making any pretense that he was trying to connect with their goddess.

“I know,” a reflecting pool with lily pads floating on the surface caught his eye.

“But do you believe me when I say it?” Caduceus took his hand, his fingers twirled around his own so naturally.

Fjord stared down at his half-obscured reflection in the pool, “I believe that you believe it. I’m not sure if  _ I  _ do. It’s just,” he sighed long and deep through his nose, “I know nothing would happen any time soon but I’d kind of be running in blind.”

“You have a knack for it. Everyone has some level of instincts when it comes to this stuff,” Caduceus reassured him.

“And I keep thinking about how things were at Driftwood and thinking about all the little things that I never realized was strange until somebody else pointed it out to me and about how that place wore me down. And how freeing it felt to finally start working on a boat and then  _ Sabien _ ,” he spat the name, “blew us all up and put me in that  _ thing’s  _ path.”

Caduceus bent down so his forehead was against Fjord’s, “It’s alright. You’ll sort it out. And I’m here if you ever need help.”

Fjord held up the hand that was holding Cad’s, pressed a kiss to his knuckles, “Thanks, ‘Dueces.”

“Mmm, don’t mention it,” Caduceus shifted his head a little so that his hair made a flowing pink-and-grey curtain that blocked the sight of any curious passers-by to kiss him softly.

Fjord kissed back just a little before pulling away, “Come on, we’re supposed to be on guard.”

As they’d expected nobody ‘tried anything’ but it meant that they had mostly free reign of a luxurious mansion until the next morning when the rest of the nein and the nobles came back. Even just exploring the halls and unlocked spaces was enough to keep them searching for the next few days if they’d had the time.

The two of them joined the kitchen staff for dinner and had only really just started their soup when they heard a tiny voice come barrelling towards them.

Bryn ran straight to Fjord, clinging tight to his leg, “Teeth!”

“Where’s your nanny?” Caduceus asked.

Bryn ignored him and clung tighter to his leg, “ _ Teeth! _ ”

“What do you want Bryn? Do your teeth hurt?” She was young enough to still be teething, right? How fast do elves teeth anyway?

Caduceus chuckled, “You’ve made an impression, that’s for sure.”

Fjord heard a static-y noise from Sending brush along the inside of his skull, “Jester incoming.”

“Hey! It’s me! We had a  _ bit _ of a scrape on the road but we should still be there by morning. How’s the baby?” Jester updated him as best as she could in twenty-five words or less.

He pulled Bryn up into his lap, “Hope you’re okay. Everything’s fine on our end. See you in the morning.”

The nanny ran into the kitchen and locked eyes on where Bryn sat in his lap, “There you are! Sorry, I was about to give her a bath and she ran off.”

“Oh, you think I can scare her off with my teeth, is that it?” Fjord said with a slight teasing to his voice.

Bryn threw another puff of sparkles at the nanny.

He sat up, scooping her so she sat on his hip, and handed her over to the nanny, “No such luck.”

“ _ Betrayal _ ,” Caduceus teased him when the toddler started kicking and squirming to get away from the dreaded bath time. “Gods, I feel that. My siblings pulled that one so many times when I was little. Just pass you along.”

The idea of Caduceus calling himself ‘little’ at any stage of his life seemed comical, even just thinking about it relative to his current size. “You said you’re the youngest, right?”

Caduceus ate another spoonful of soup and nodded, “Runt of the litter.”

Scratch that, the idea that Caduceus was the  _ small one _ was comical and slightly frightening, “You?”

“Mhm,” he nodded as he kept eating his soup.

“So how tall are your siblings?” He let curiosity take hold.

“Clarabelle is a foot taller than me,” Caduceus said casually, finishing off his soup.

Fjord practically short-circuited trying to picture Caduceus next to his siblings, “Wow.”

“Made it very easy for them to hold things up where I couldn’t reach. Also made them much easier to climb so I  _ could  _ reach things,” He still had his face pulled in a smile but Fjord could see the smile left his eyes. 

“They’re alright. We’ll find them eventually, didn’t She say there was something in the islands to the south?” Fjord reassured him.

“They might be there,” he agreed.

The smile still hadn’t made it back into his eyes, “I can take first watch tonight, you went first last night.”

“Okay, do you want to meditate before we start going on watch?” Caduceus asked as he got up to wash his bowl.

Fjord finished off the last of his soup real quick and got up to join him at the sink, “Sounds good.”

“Do you mind if we burn some incense in the house?” Caduceus asked the cooks.

“Uh, maybe not  _ in _ the house. If you did it in the sunroom I’m sure that’d be fine,” the young dwarven man answered.

“Okay, thanks, we’ll be brief.”

“We haven’t had many adventurers that meditate. I think there was a monk once but I think that’s part of the job description. Are you meditating generally or to someone in particular?” The half-elf woman asked with interest piqued.

“Mm, a little bit of both I suppose,” Caduceus didn’t really answer, “C’mon, Mr. Fjord.”

“Thank you for the soup,” Fjord called behind him as the two of them left.

Caduceus pulled the incense and matches from his bag and started lighting it. It was one of their shorter meditations. Only a few minutes of breathing in the smoke and clearing their minds. Neither of them felt the warm presence that indicated the Wildmother’s presence. They just took it as a chance to let go of the thoughts that were weighing them down. Once the incense burned out their legs both felt relaxed enough to make standing up a challenge for a second.

Fjord picked up the bowl of burnt-out incense, “I’ll clean this up and go take watch. I’ll wake you up when it’s time to switch off.”

Caduceus yawned, “Yeah, sounds good.”

Fjord poked his head into the nursery where the nanny trying to get her to go sleep, immediately shushed at him to quiet down. He flashed a ‘ _ sorry! _ ’ face and ducked out. He made his way down to the front entrance and found a spot where he could watch the road from the windows. It didn’t take long for his thoughts to wander, trying to imagine what the Blooming Grove looked like full of a small herd of firbolg children running around. Caduceus being  _ small  _ in any sense still didn’t register. Caduceus’s siblings could probably lift him over their heads. Caduceus had mentioned that not all of his family were clerics, maybe one of them was a paladin too. He’d have to compare notes with them. 

After a few hours of nothing, he got up from his spot at the window and shuffled upstairs to the guest room. Caduceus was already awake and pulling on his boots when he came in. He helped him out when Fjord fumbled with the buckles on his armor, set it down off to the side in a chair.

Fjord flopped into bed, “Your turn.”

“Of course,” Caduceus brushed his hair back out of his face, hand lingering for a moment before he left to go take watch.

He woke up to a voice trying to talk in his head. He forced himself to wake up and listen. Judging by the light coming in through the window it was probably earlier in the morning. 

“ _ Fjord!  _ C’mon sleepy head! We’re almost back! They want you to meet us on the steps with the baby! We’re just up the road!” Jester’s update made him shoot straight awake, pulling on the rest of his clothes and armor before dashing downstairs to get Caduceus. 

As quickly as they could without making her wake up too fast and unleashing a two-year-old tantrum punctuated by prestidigitation they got Bryn dressed and ran back downstairs to meet back with the others. The carriage was pulling up the path from the road right as they stepped outside, a half-asleep Bryn resting against Caduceus’s chest, a fistful of his hair in one hand. A sparrow with blank yellow eyes landed on Fjord’s shoulder, looked him over. It had strange coloration for a sparrow, almost like a tabby, oh! Frumpkin!

“We’re all good over here, Caleb,” he told sparrow-Frumpkin.

The sparrow nodded at him and flew back up the path, right when the carriage pulled up to the bottom of the steps.

The Lady Meliamne quickly ascended the steps, her husband close behind, “Nothing happened?”

“Nope, everything went smoothly,” Caduceus tried to ease her hand out of his hair to hand her over to her parents.

That woke her up and she looked like she was going to be upset for a second until she saw her parents, “Mama! Papa!”

Her mother scooped her up, “Yes, sweetheart! We’re back.”

“Your friends have your payment. Thank you for your work,” Lord Meliamne picked Bryn up and lifted her over his head, making her giggle uncontrollably.

Caduceus ruffled up her hair, “Bye, Bryn. It was nice to meet you.”

She went wide-eyed and her father put her back down to his hip, “No! Big! Teeth! Stay!”

Fjord stopped halfway down the steps, “Sorry, we have other places we need to be. Maybe we’ll meet you again someday. You’ll know a lot more magic by then.”

“Stay!” She insisted.

Caduceus put a hand on his shoulder, “We have to go, Bryn. Your mama and papa are back.”

She patted her father’s shoulder to get his attention, “Big! Teeth! Stay!”

He chuckled, “No, they need to go home too.”

“I’m glad you had fun with us, Bryn! Bye!” Caduceus called over his shoulder, not letting go of him, guiding him back down towards the others.

They all piled into the cart where Caleb still sat with his eyes glazed over looking through Frumpkin’s. Beau and Nott were at the front with the horses. Jester and Yasha sat together facing Caleb, chatting about something. 

Jester stopped mid-sentence when she saw him and Caduceus get in, “Soooo! How was it?”

“It went pretty good. That’s a  _ huge  _ house, it’s a good thing she didn’t run off, we would have gotten lost searching for her,” Caduceus answered.

She waggled an eyebrow at him, “What did you think, Fjord? How was babysitting duty?”

“We had a good time,” he didn’t elaborate any further.

“Good, because we know you two are all lovey-dovey. We figured you needed a few days to get it out of your system. You two are not as subtle as you try to be. Jester has eaten pastries less saccharine than you two,” Caleb came back into his own senses in time to quip.

Caduceus chuckled, “Thanks?”

“You’re welcome! I sneaked some of the food from the banquet into my haversack. Do you want some?” Jester pulled it off her back and held the flap open for them.

Nott shouted over her shoulder, “We’re off!”

“Ya!” Beau tugged on the reins and the cart began to rumble down the path back towards the main road.

Caduceus’s arm around his waist kept him from lurching to the side as the cart started.

“We should have left you there a little while longer,” Caleb joked.

“What? Jealous?” Fjord joked back.

“Hardly,” Caleb pulled out his spellbook from the harness underneath his coat and buried his nose in studying.

Eventually, they made it back to town, he and Caduceus still pressed up next to each other. His head on Cad’s shoulder. Cad’s head on top of his, and his arm still curled around his waist.

  
  
  
  
  



End file.
